Italian ski great Brignone faces uncertainty over Olympics as she rehabs from leg injuries

MILAN (AP) — World Cup champion Federica Brignone doesn’t know when she will be able to put her skis back on never mind get back into competition, less than four months before the start of the Italian skier’s home Olympics.

Brignone broke multiple bones in her left leg — and also tore her ACL — during a giant slalom crash at the Italian championships in April.

That was meant to be a celebratory final week of competition after Brignone’s best season, in which she won the overall World Cup title as well as the giant slalom and downhill crystal globes.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to get back to exactly how I was before,” Brignone said Saturday. “In fact I’m sure I won’t.”

The 35-year-old Brignone was expected to be one of Italy’s stars in the Milan-Cortina Games in February, instead she could be watching it from the sidelines.

“Since I hurt myself I have not had precise dates,” Brignone said. “It’s very complicated to be able to give those, I am working week by week, certainly I’m getting better, certainly I’m working hard. I will continue to do physiotherapy until I’m able to try and put on skis.”

Brignone, who works one her rehabilitation for around seven hours every day, said that it is only recently she has been able to go up and down stairs “like a normal person.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back on the slopes, certainly not November,” Brignone added. “Honestly, until I put my skis back on I don’t know if I’ll be able to ski at the Olympics … and we have a really strong team so if one of them deserves the place more than me, they deserve it more than me.

“Obviously I’m confident, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing everything that I’m doing, I wouldn’t be working really hard like I’m doing now.”

Despite the uncertainty, Brignone was full of smiles as she spoke at a media day organized by the Italian winter sports federation.

“It’s not these Olympics that will change my life, change my career,” Brignone said. “I’ve done what I’ve done and in fact I achieved much more than I could have ever dreamed of. It would be something more, it would be a beautiful dream.

“It’s fantastic to have the Olympics at home, obviously something that I that I would have liked to do because otherwise I would have already stopped. But I also need this positive energy to heal to return to normal life, because with such an injury it’s not a given.”

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing